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Current Issue
February 3, 2026
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Faced with endlessly narrowing possibilities, I return to my diary in an attempt to dream, to imagine a future.
Engy Abdelal
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Palestinians exercise on a beach in the Deir al-Balah Palestinian refugee camp on June 14, 2023.(Mohammed Abed / Getty Images)
This piece is part of A Day for Gaza, an initiative in which The Nation has turned over its website exclusively to voices from the Gaza Strip. You can find all of the work in the series here.
This diary entry was written shortly after a ceasefire was declared. I wrote this between the sounds of bombardment and shellfire, but also between dreams of study and families reunited. This is not a story of individual survival, but an attempt to encapsulate a generation that has lived the war in all its horror and, at the same time, insists on dreaming:
The war began the week of my 26th birthday. There was a lightness on that day, something born from what remained of our childhood. Sparks like candy, crackling in our mouths: colorful letters; laughter leaking out through voice notes; hearts adorning our text chats; an abundance of cake. But the days that followed are laid out like burnt matchsticks; once the first one was lit, the flames consumed the rest. The war spared nothing on the calendar; I have had no other birthdays since.
I am trying to put this all behind me. I am trying to extricate myself from those heavy details, to move forward. I want a future whose sky does not tend toward warplanes. I want a future severed from whatever “The Strip” has come to mean. A truthful and hopeful future where there is no Strip.
There is a dream I have held. A wave breaks on the shores of Accre before bending towards Jaffa, and I am suddenly on a small motorboat. We are chanting first, then laughing. Sweet sounds drown out the roar of the engine. My grandmother used to speak of this place—the Bride of the Sea—a wide, blue, expanse that did not always look out toward barbed enclosures.
I want a future whose sky does not tend toward warplanes. I want a future severed from whatever “The Strip” has come to mean. A truthful and hopeful future where there is no Strip.
We step off at the harbor and walk toward those old houses whose balconies sway along the seashore. A familiar scent weeps: A vendor is selling Kaa’ak. He welcomes me in our Gazan dialect, his voice thick with familiar reassurance, and I run my fingers along the sesame seeds. “Mati’la’qish,” he says, don’t worry. This is a scene too familiar to be cliché. It is a fixture entrenched in our minds, an inheritance so ubiquitous that it could never be encountered for the first …
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Current Issue
February 3, 2026
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Faced with endlessly narrowing possibilities, I return to my diary in an attempt to dream, to imagine a future.
Engy Abdelal
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Palestinians exercise on a beach in the Deir al-Balah Palestinian refugee camp on June 14, 2023.(Mohammed Abed / Getty Images)
This piece is part of A Day for Gaza, an initiative in which The Nation has turned over its website exclusively to voices from the Gaza Strip. You can find all of the work in the series here.
This diary entry was written shortly after a ceasefire was declared. I wrote this between the sounds of bombardment and shellfire, but also between dreams of study and families reunited. This is not a story of individual survival, but an attempt to encapsulate a generation that has lived the war in all its horror and, at the same time, insists on dreaming:
The war began the week of my 26th birthday. There was a lightness on that day, something born from what remained of our childhood. Sparks like candy, crackling in our mouths: colorful letters; laughter leaking out through voice notes; hearts adorning our text chats; an abundance of cake. But the days that followed are laid out like burnt matchsticks; once the first one was lit, the flames consumed the rest. The war spared nothing on the calendar; I have had no other birthdays since.
I am trying to put this all behind me. I am trying to extricate myself from those heavy details, to move forward. I want a future whose sky does not tend toward warplanes. I want a future severed from whatever “The Strip” has come to mean. A truthful and hopeful future where there is no Strip.
There is a dream I have held. A wave breaks on the shores of Accre before bending towards Jaffa, and I am suddenly on a small motorboat. We are chanting first, then laughing. Sweet sounds drown out the roar of the engine. My grandmother used to speak of this place—the Bride of the Sea—a wide, blue, expanse that did not always look out toward barbed enclosures.
I want a future whose sky does not tend toward warplanes. I want a future severed from whatever “The Strip” has come to mean. A truthful and hopeful future where there is no Strip.
We step off at the harbor and walk toward those old houses whose balconies sway along the seashore. A familiar scent weeps: A vendor is selling Kaa’ak. He welcomes me in our Gazan dialect, his voice thick with familiar reassurance, and I run my fingers along the sesame seeds. “Mati’la’qish,” he says, don’t worry. This is a scene too familiar to be cliché. It is a fixture entrenched in our minds, an inheritance so ubiquitous that it could never be encountered for the first …
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
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Magazine
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Politics
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Economy
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Current Issue
February 3, 2026
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Faced with endlessly narrowing possibilities, I return to my diary in an attempt to dream, to imagine a future.
Engy Abdelal
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Palestinians exercise on a beach in the Deir al-Balah Palestinian refugee camp on June 14, 2023.(Mohammed Abed / Getty Images)
This piece is part of A Day for Gaza, an initiative in which The Nation has turned over its website exclusively to voices from the Gaza Strip. You can find all of the work in the series here.
This diary entry was written shortly after a ceasefire was declared. I wrote this between the sounds of bombardment and shellfire, but also between dreams of study and families reunited. This is not a story of individual survival, but an attempt to encapsulate a generation that has lived the war in all its horror and, at the same time, insists on dreaming:
The war began the week of my 26th birthday. There was a lightness on that day, something born from what remained of our childhood. Sparks like candy, crackling in our mouths: colorful letters; laughter leaking out through voice notes; hearts adorning our text chats; an abundance of cake. But the days that followed are laid out like burnt matchsticks; once the first one was lit, the flames consumed the rest. The war spared nothing on the calendar; I have had no other birthdays since.
I am trying to put this all behind me. I am trying to extricate myself from those heavy details, to move forward. I want a future whose sky does not tend toward warplanes. I want a future severed from whatever “The Strip” has come to mean. A truthful and hopeful future where there is no Strip.
There is a dream I have held. A wave breaks on the shores of Accre before bending towards Jaffa, and I am suddenly on a small motorboat. We are chanting first, then laughing. Sweet sounds drown out the roar of the engine. My grandmother used to speak of this place—the Bride of the Sea—a wide, blue, expanse that did not always look out toward barbed enclosures.
I want a future whose sky does not tend toward warplanes. I want a future severed from whatever “The Strip” has come to mean. A truthful and hopeful future where there is no Strip.
We step off at the harbor and walk toward those old houses whose balconies sway along the seashore. A familiar scent weeps: A vendor is selling Kaa’ak. He welcomes me in our Gazan dialect, his voice thick with familiar reassurance, and I run my fingers along the sesame seeds. “Mati’la’qish,” he says, don’t worry. This is a scene too familiar to be cliché. It is a fixture entrenched in our minds, an inheritance so ubiquitous that it could never be encountered for the first …
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